Adventures in Fiber

Spring Garlands

Here at the Crooked Yellow House it doesn’t seem like Northeast Ohio at all. It has been in the upper 70s for days now. Us hardened, jaded natives are secretly bracing for an April freeze, but we suppress those thoughts for now and put on shorts and show our winter-pale legs and get out our motorcycles and bicycles and act like nuts because we can see the sun. Until we start complaining about the humidity.

Anyway, I put up my Spring wreath today. I found a grapevine wreath at a thrift shop for $2.00 and I couldn’t resist. I got out my box of silk flower garlands that had decorated the century-old granary on my ex-property for my last wedding five years and 3 days ago. (And I DO mean “last” — it turned ugly fast and that’s enough of that.) Anyway, I wondered at the time if I should keep all those flowers, if they had some “bad mojo” I should toss. (When your husband-to-be takes over the entire affair and turns it into only what HE wants despite all your own suggestions and dreams, RED FLAG. Just another one I ignored. )

Ultimately I didn’t throw the flowers away, since they were actually the only part of the wedding and reception I had any hand in — I pored over the internet and purchased at a great price lots of high-quality flowers in soft blues and violets to adorn the window under which we were wed, and the ledge below, which also held tea lights burning in old mason jars and perfume bottles I had dug up from the property, down where the original farmstead and been.

Okay, sorry for the tangent there. On the “crafty” side of things, I just wound the garlands on the wreath with floral wire. Not a very neat job of it, mind you, I have no patience for that kind of thing, and wrestling with silk flowers and wire and prickly wreath is not my thing. I was, however, creative enough to hang the wreath with some thin green ribbon I had in my stash instead of the piece of cotton string I used for my Winter wreath. Luckily no one’s here to inspect my work; Martha Stewart doesn’t live here.

When I moved here to start my life over, I used some of those wedding garlands to decorate the tops of the cabinets in the Crooked Yellow House, and now they also decorate my little green door. They don’t carry any bad mojo at all. They carry vibes of Spring and Hope and Change. All good things that I’m learning to embrace. Beginning now, on this First day of Spring. I wish the same to you!